{"id":719,"date":"2012-12-19T22:12:01","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T03:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jlg.name\/blog\/?p=719"},"modified":"2012-12-19T22:12:01","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T03:12:01","slug":"eighteen-hours-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jlg.name\/blog\/2012\/12\/eighteen-hours-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighteen hours later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not even 18 hours after I wrote the previous post<\/a>, our water heater’s relief valve decided to relieve itself.<\/p>\n

\"Water<\/a>

Water heater pressure and temperature relief valve. The valve releases water into the pipe (shown), which in turn releases water onto your basement floor (not shown).<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately for us it didn’t flood very much. \u00a0The water was about an inch deep in the middle of the basement (a concrete floor with no sump or drain) and was dry along much of the basement walls. \u00a0I was easily able to reach the water supply cut-off valve and stanch the flow. \u00a0Most worrisome is that the bottom of our expensive new furnace was submerged\u2014though thankfully none of the internal components got wet\u2014so I’ll need to keep an eye out for rusting for awhile.<\/p>\n

The plumber’s working theory is:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We had the temperature set higher than necessary (about 135 degrees);<\/li>\n
  2. the old temperature control module somehow caused the temperature to rise much hotter than the setting;<\/li>\n
  3. the relief valve opened due to overheating; and<\/li>\n
  4. the relief valve stuck open due to sediment in the tank.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We now have a shiny new relief valve, several shiny new\u00a0water sensor alarms<\/a>, and a shiny new bill for emergency service from our plumber.<\/p>\n

    Other things that were helpful to have on hand:<\/p>\n